Relationships in Old Filth

In the novel Old Filth by Jane Gardam, the main character, Filth, has issues connecting with others. He cannot express his feelings and has trouble getting closer with the people in his life. The reason he has this emotional incapacity is because of the lack of relationship he has with his father, and because he was torn away from the only truly loving relationships he had in his life when he was young.

Filth's father suffered from PTSD from fighting in the war, and because of this, is emotionally stunted himself. He cannot express his feelings and turns to alcohol for relief. When Filth's mother dies in childbirth, his father becomes even more withdrawn. Filth is raised by two women from the village where his father is District Officer. He rarely sees his father when he is growing up and when he finally meets him he refuses to believe that he is actually his father. "'I am your father.' 'You can't be,' said Edward… 'And why not?' 'Because you've been here all the time without me'" (45). To young Filth, a father has to be someone present in your life that loves you, and he does not recognize this in his own father. Later in the novel, Filth's father's situation is more openly explained and he becomes a sympathetic character. Though his inabilities to express his emotions affected Filth, he did all he could to provide Edward with a good education and to keep him out of the army. In his own way, Filth's Father loves him, but because of his past, he is unable to be a father figure in Filth's life.

Filth's inability to express his emotions is also connected to the fact that he was taken away from the only people that truly loved him when he was a child. After his mother dies in childbirth, Edward is placed in the care of his wet-nurse and her daughter Ada. Both women live in the village when Edward's father is District Officer, and so Edward grows up among the villagers. "Because of the memory of the child's kind mother, the Long House respected him and accepted him, an ivory child in their warm dun dust, and he was passed about, rocked to sleep, talked to and sung to and understood only Malay. By the time he was one he rolled and tottered and waddled in the village compound with the other children" (39). Filth grew up in a poor Malaysian village without attention from his father, yet he had a happy childhood because the villagers, and Ada and her mother, truly loved him. When he was separated from them and taken to Wales, he resisted, wanting to stay with the people who raised him. "As the trees on either winding bank blotted out the landing stage, Edward, who had been struck dumb by the sight of Ada left alone on the tottering platform, began to scream 'Ada, Ada, Ada!' and to point back up the river" (45). Edward was torn away from the only people who loved him, despite his pleas to stay. This separation traumatizes him in itself, but then he is taken to Wales where he is abused by the family who houses him. He is moved from a situation in which he is loved to a situation in which he is abused. This transition, combined with the fact that his father never openly expresses his love for him, causes Filth to be unable to express or fully understand his emotions.